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Is China being short-changed by a UK-based science ranking index? It depends who you ask
- Changes to the way the annual Nature Index assesses global research have attracted a flurry of opinions
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Zhang Tongin Beijing
Changes to how an international database assesses and tracks the affiliations of the authors of high-quality scientific research articles has raised questions about whether Chinese academics and institutions are being unfairly treated, amid other suggestions that the index had favoured China.
Based on data from March 2023 to February 2024, the latest rankings from the Nature Index, an annual ratings list published by the London-based scientific journal Nature, showed that Chinese institutions occupied 10 of the top 15 spots.
But the new assessment used an expanded database to include articles from 64 medical journals, a field in which the United States holds a significant lead, with more than four times the share of second-placed China.
“Even after the Nature Index was expanded to include more than 60 medical journals last year, China still ranked at the top of this database,” state-run Guangming Daily reported on June 10.
In recent years, the number of Chinese institutions included in the Nature Index has grown rapidly, even surpassing the number of articles published by Oxford and Cambridge researchers.
In 2023, Chinese institutions surpassed those from the US for the first time, a lead that was maintained and even expanded on by some institutions this year.
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